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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22823341">wings on some wheels</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/puella_peanut/pseuds/puella_peanut'>puella_peanut</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Banana Fish (Anime &amp; Manga)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>1980s, Boys Being Boys, M/M, Motorcycles</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 12:29:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,307</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22823341</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/puella_peanut/pseuds/puella_peanut</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He's nervous in the nicest sort of way. </p><p>The type of nervous that makes his toes wiggle in the confines of his shoes, that makes his smile spread without restraint—and why not?</p><p>It's <em>Ash.</em></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ash Lynx &amp; Okumura Eiji, Ash Lynx/Okumura Eiji</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>101</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>wings on some wheels</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>cry with me about bf on <a href="https://puella-peanut.tumblr.com/">my tumblr</a> ya'll.</p><p>And yes, the title is totally stolen from <em>Thunder Road</em> by Bruce Springsteen.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"You have...motorbike?"</p><p></p><div>
  <p>It dangles there, his question. Suspended between skyscraper and sidewalk. Summertime wedged in the neighborhood cracks of Manhattan. Broken English. Him and Ash.</p>
  <p>Does it need an answer, though? No—at least, Eiji thinks, not when it's sitting right there in front of him close enough to stroke, some mechanical pet taken out for a spin. Glossy and sleek despite its age, gears oiled, leather polished; the shining black mechanics of its meticulous works purring like a panther in the sun. Even Eiji, familiar with such things only through the idle flick of magazines through his fingers, and posters tacked up to cover the spareness of his bedroom wall in faraway Izumo—can see it's not a stray, nor even a passing whim.</p>
  <p>It's got that look of something that's been owned.</p>
  <p>It's got that feel of something that's been claimed.</p>
  <p>Ash rests on the handlebars, lean and languid as a cat lounging under the day. Sunset darkens the gold of his hair bronze, his forearms much the same. "It's Shorter's. Old as dirt, but anything beats the subway. Borrowed it for the evening, save him from being chewed out by Nadia one night." His lips tilt crookedly. "You gotta ticket to ride?"</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"Eh?" </p>
  <p>Well, there was a plane ticket from Narita Airport, economy class; transit fares lost in the madcap bustle of Grand Central. A thick crumple of unfamiliar American dollars just for hailing a taxi in the rain. One ink smear of an address scribbled on a napkin. All Eiji's got left in his pockets at the moment is spare change, and a roll of film. Just in case. </p>
  <p>"You know that I don't offer my services for free," Ash drawls, interrupting. "Gonna cost you." His tone mocks the sensual, the serious—but the playful quirk at his mouth betrays him, and Eiji finds himself rolling his eyes one way, even while his heart stubbornly runs the other. He puffs out his cheeks. </p>
  <p>"Oh yeah?"</p>
  <p>
    <em>"Yeah."</em>
  </p>
  <p>"Big talking from you like usual. What cost to ride?"</p>
  <p>"Come over here and I'll let you know."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>The graffiti-covered wall is reassuring against Eiji's shoulders, firm and stable, if coarse. It's steady, safe, and not much of...well, <em>anything,</em> and leaving it is not a choice at all, just a reflex at this point. But his sneakers decide almost before his mind does, and in six steps, two, one—over cigarette butts, gum wrappers, and his own heightened anticipation—</p>
</div><div>
  <p>—he bumps knee against Ash's, nearly stumbling over the bike, over Ash, and over onto the sidewalk to scrape both himself and his eagerness sore.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"Dumbass," Ash snorts, rolling his eyes, and pushing Eiji none too gently back upright. "Get <em>this</em> on first, and try not to kill yourself in the process." He hands him a helmet with a cracked visor, and probably a story that's goes along with it too—later on, if and when Eiji remembers to ask. "I got enough trouble with the law already; don't need a dead Japanese boy to get me booked in orange for the rest of my life." </p>
</div><div>
  <p>"Orange your color I know," Eiji manages in his turn, fiddling with the visor up and down and ignoring the jab of his stubbed toe. "Like pumpkin!" </p>
</div><div>
  <p>"Shut <em>up,"</em> </p>
</div><div>
  <p>He slips the helmet on, and the world narrows to little more than a thread closing in tight on either side. Just a skinny line of grimy city lining the outer rims of Ash's t-shirt like debris. Faded white cotton and <em>Live Aid '85 </em>smudged across the back, nearly blotting everything else out. <em>Nearly.</em> Eiji flings his right leg over, and the seat pushes itself between his thighs, black leather and hot steel parting acid-wash denim. The helmet is hot and heavy and hard around his face. But if he opens his mouth to speak, there'll be a softness at his lips right where Ash's have been, will be again, probably. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>The bike trembles, Eiji along with it. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>"It hot!"</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"It's <em>summer."</em></p>
</div><div>
  <p>Through the visor Eiji spots a few kids up ahead in the distance playing street-ball or something, shadows long and spindly, veering off into the mouth of dark alleyways. Orange sunset bounces off a tight row of parallel parked cars, several cans of Coca-cola abandoned near overgrown grass. It takes him two tries, but Eiji places his hands on Ash's waist, and, as if to test the length of his daring before it frays, slowly hooks his thumbs in the spare loops of Ash's battered jeans—finding it to be a marvelous thing, this contrast of fabric, of feeling. Easing forward just the smallest bit, Eiji realizes he's never been this close to another person before. The type of closeness were there's only room enough for warm cotton, skin, and heartbeats.</p>
  <p>He's nervous in the nicest sort of way. </p>
  <p>The type of nervous that makes his toes wiggle in the confines of his shoes, that makes his smile spread without restraint—and why not?</p>
  <p>It's <em>Ash. </em></p>
</div><div>
  <p>By some means he finds something to say before he grows lightheaded from some kind of wonderful thrill rising like a hot air balloon in his chest. Before he's carried up and away. Just something, anything, to pin himself down. "You...you don't need helmet?"</p>
</div><div>
  <p>There's a rare smile on Ash's lips; Eiji hears it, even if he can't see it. "Got you in it, that's enough for now." (Eiji's cheeks burn at this, hotly too—though later on he'll tell himself it was only the foreign heat of a New York City summer that caused it at that moment. Nothing else. He'll almost convince himself of it too. Almost.)</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"Fine. Not my fault if you killed on bike, then." </p>
</div><div>
  <p>Ash ignores the jibe with a <em>hmf,</em> slipping on Ray-Bans and a carefree attitude that boarders on devil-may-care. He eases one dirty red sneaker off the sidewalk, and the bike shifts. Metal shrugging off one glint, catching another. All set to race what's left of the sun. </p>
  <p>"Ready?"</p>
</div><div>
  <p>And well, of course Eiji is; he somehow <em>always</em> is no matter what when it comes to Ash—</p>
  <p>—but there's just small thing, a last thing he remembers suddenly. "What price?"</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"What?" </p>
</div><div>
  <p>Eiji's smirk turns into a grin, gleeful and broad; a secret he shares only with the inside of the helmet. <em>Ash</em> <em>Lynx</em> forgetting anything? Today's certainly a rarity, and one he'll remember for this and that. Other things too, probably. "No free service. Need ticket for ride. What's cost?"</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Ash tilts his head, his profile silhouetted in the setting sun; gold and white and seventeen and now. Eiji barely registers when he holds up a finger after a pause that lingers. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>"First thing. Hold on tight," and Eiji does, more than he already was, just as Ash's other foot leaves the ground. The wheels make that fist turn on the street, then one more, than another. There is no riding breeze on their skin as of yet, no bodies thrust against the wind, though in a moment there will be. There is simply movement tilted towards the setting sun, slow and steady—building into something large and fierce and magnificent. Shedding the skin of small, unnecessary things behind in the dust where they belong. </p>
  <p>And then slowly and all at once they're off; buildings blurring to gray and glass and flares of neon lights on the side, the smell of hot leather and sunburned tar and warm denim over, under, and around them—</p>
  <p>—and whatever flying is, Eiji manages when his senses return to him, it's a far and away second place to this.   </p>
  <p>"Last thing," Ash shouts over the rumble of the engine, and the rush of motion that steals his voice, and brings Eiji tighter still to him,</p>
  <p>"Don't let go!"</p>
</div><div>
  <p>And of course Eiji doesn't.  </p>
</div><div>
  <p>(And of course Eiji won't.)</p>
</div>
  </div></div>
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